


Fare Thee Well

by aboutbunnies



Category: Lost
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 03:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6357955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aboutbunnies/pseuds/aboutbunnies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate and Aaron in Whatever Happened, Happened: <i>She'd never expected it to hurt this much, when she'd taken him into her arms as her own on the </i>Searcher<i>. She'd never expected to fall this deeply, completely, utterly in love.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Fare Thee Well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evilythedwarf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/gifts).



She gives him a bath in the motel tub and scrubs at his skin until it pinks, though he barely lets her, indignant and cranky because she forgot to pack his firetruck washcloth (how _could_ she?) and his Thomas the Tank Engine water toy. He screeches about both and flails out of her way when she goes to rinse his hair and she's just as soaked as he when the whole ordeal is finished.

If you _knew_ , she wants to say to him, if you only _knew_ , but of course she can't. So she resigns herself to the fight, wanting him clean, his hair soft, his skin sweet with the so-familiar scent of baby wash. Needing Carole Littleton to know she's taken good care of him. That she's _cared_.

It's all for naught, anyway, when she's changing her own clothes and he, clad only in his Spiderman undies (at least she didn't forget _those_ ), discovers a pen in the nightstand drawer and proceeds to scribble over the majority of the book of Job in the Gideon Bible – and then, tattoo his torso in blue ballpoint ink.

She walks out of the bathroom and just stares at the mess, Bible pages littering the floor (there's some bit of karma coming her way for that, she's sure, just add it to her list) and blue circles and lines crisscrossing the toddler's belly. She's rehearsed what she'll say to Carole – how Aaron is so sweet and kind and good – and she thinks she should probably also add _and he's three_.

“Oh, _Aaron_ ,” she finally sighs, her voice breaking, just barely, on his name.

He grins up at her, his indignation from before forgotten in the thrill of his newfound diversion - “Look, Mommy!” - and Kate has to turn away. _I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry_ , is the mantra in her head, because she's vowed she absolutely will _not_ , in front of him. Instead, she busies herself with clearing up the Bible mess until she's sure her eyes won't spill over when she looks at him.

“We don't color on bodies, Goober,” she tells him, when she can, as she reaches for his hand to extract the pen from his fisted grasp.

But he protests, holding on tighter to the pen, face crumpling and a whine starting. Kate braces for another fight. She gives up even attempting to clean the pen marks off his skin.

The rest of the evening is similar. The juice box he'd insisted upon earlier is rejected. He cries in protest through brushing his teeth. She pulls out his red footie sleeper (his favorite); he throws it down and insists on the green – no, the stripes – no the blue, instead. It's not at all what she'd wanted for their last – well, she clamps down on that thought, hard.

“I want to go hoooome,” he whines at one point, and she bites her lip and breathes through her nose and clutches her arms around her body so she doesn't grab him and grab the car keys and just start driving, anywhere but here.

She knows he's overly tired from not getting a nap earlier, and from traveling, from being someplace unfamiliar. And what's worse, she knows he has to be picking up on her own tense emotions, though she's trying desperately to keep them off of her face, out of her voice. Kate wants nothing more than to sit down on the floor with him and add her voice to the protests, her tears to his.

Finally, when she can tell he's beginning to droop, she just scoops him up and lays him down on the double bed. Stretching out next to him, she rubs his back slowly and cards her fingers carefully through his hair, hums _Catch a Falling Star_ close to his ear, thankful he's settling. He smells clean and perfect and sweet, and she inhales deeply, committing it to memory. She listens to his breaths as they even and whispers into his hair. “Goodnight, Goobs. I love you.”

She's hummed the same song, whispered the same words to him every night for over two years. She doesn't allow herself to think about this being the last time. She holds her breath.

“Night night, Mommy,” she finally hears, a slurred mutter she'd not understand if she didn't know what to listen for.

This time, she allows the tears to seep from her eyes. He'll never know.

________________________

When she arrives back at their room with Carole, he's still asleep. A small part of her wants to shake him awake, just so she can feel his arms around her neck one more time, hear his sweet voice again, but she's spent too much of her life being selfish. Instead, she perches on the edge of the bed, traces his ear with a finger.

She'd never expected it to hurt this much, when she'd taken him into her arms as her own on the _Searcher_. She'd never expected to fall this deeply, completely, utterly in love. 

She touches the hand she'll never hold again, cards her fingers through the hair she won't get to comb in the morning, she smooths her hand down the front of the blue sleeper she won't wash for him again. She lets the tears fall freely, now.

She'd never expected this to break her heart.

If she does not leave now, she never will. She kisses his forehead and inhales his scent one more time, then stands and goes to the door.

_“Mommy!”_

_It stops her cold, his wail of fear and grief. She halts, her hand on the doorframe._

_“Mommy! Don't go, Mommy!”_

_Her hand aches from gripping the doorframe too tightly, and her heart threatens to jump out of her chest. She turns to look at him, slowly, bracing herself –_

And he's still there, sleeping soundly. He hasn't stirred. She chokes out a sob.

“Bye bye, baby,” she manages.

It wasn't even real. But she will take it to her grave, the echo of him calling for her, for someone she's not, anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from this: [Fare Thee Well](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C0RPeVjOc0).
> 
> This fic can also be read on [my tumblr](http://sombra-alma.tumblr.com/post/141695554352/3-please-dont-leave-kate-aaron).


End file.
